Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1887-08-06
Character Building.

exceedingly great and difficult
it is! The power OF human genius
has accomplished many wonderful
things. 1t was a great thing for Ho-
mer and Dante and Milton to write
the three great epicpoems over which
charmed readers will bend, perhaps,
for very long periods yet to come. 1t
was a great thing to create the great
pyramid, the temple of Karnak or
the Parthenon. But either of these
things was a far less grand and diff
cult achievement, if n considered
what it really involved, than that of
creating a character sublimely great
and %good-such, for example, as that
of Daniel, or of Paul. Works of pre-
eminent taste and art in literature,
and the chefs G8uWe of the masters
in sculpture, painting and architec-
ture, have indeed been wrought out
to be admired for ages but most of
them, at least, are essentially perish
able in their nature, and are likely
to be at length lost from the memo
ries of men. A character conformed
to the divine model and developed
into completeness, is made to endure
and be admired when the earth itself
has persisted. On the other hand,
neither Thebes, nor Athens, nor
Rome, nor any other place on earth,
can furnish among their fallen splen-
doris any ruin so melancholy to con-
template as that presented by a char
acter, which, through negligence folly
and sin, has been misfashioned into
moral deformity, and exhibits the
final, hopeless wreck of the noblest
earthly work of Coda human spirit
originally bearing the image of its
Maker.
Is this, then, indeed what is going
forward every day in these activities
which 1 see around me? Has every
infant in its mothers arms already
resting on it the amazing responsible
ty of creating for itself a character
which of necessity creates adestiny-
determines the entire value of its be-
ing? Have all these apparently
needless multitudes ofjoyous children
and merry youth, and busy and ex,
cited men and women, each a person
al life-work to be done, which TO,
good or ill they r actually doing
every hour, although they are so lit
tie mindful of the fact? Are all tn,
pleasant day-dreams, the fond imag
nations, the brilliant plans and hopes
the high ambitions and aspirations
the ~yearnings for fortune and homo
and all forms of distinction in tn
world, with which these throbbin'
hearts are filled, as a plain certaint,
leaving daily eternal lines upon tn
soul-etching on it, as with a gravin
tool, the image it is to bear in tn
coming ages? Then truly, for me
for thee, reader, for every morta
this life which we are living has
profoundly serious significance. Has
thou profoundly popdered it? Unde
standest thou what thou art thyse
becoming? A few strokes only frol
the artists crayon or craving styl,
may clearly reveal what the pictul
he is to produce will be; and a fe'
lines engraven in earlier years upo
the soul may distinctly show what
the image it has already begun
take. 1t may not then perhaps
| too late, if prompt attention be give
to the matter, to obliterate false line
l or to correct defective ones, if sue
! have been put in. But this, in IL
nature of things, cannot be so Away
I The process of making character, lie
: to its natural laws, must steadily {
on until a point is reached at whiC
it cannot be reversed, or even esse
I TALLY modified, without a miracl
: OF what sort, then, is it now? The
art living in the midst of Gods wo
derful creation, beholding continual
J., the order and beauty and grandel
= of his works; and they are offeril
l help to mould thy mind and heal
> Thou art subject ever to the vari,
= disciplines of Providence, and the
' are acting on thy sensibilities al
affecting thy habits of thought al
= feeling. Thou hast in thy hands
= divine revelation, and its truths al
influences are always reaching Il
Z reason and conscience and leavil
= their impressions on thy soul. T.
- mighty forces of evil, thine own p;
. sfOns and impulses along with t
agencies of evil spirits and evil me
are testing thy character, of all the
II things combined? Says it t